


Somewhere it hides a well

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Men of Letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:24:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's embarrassing, to need this kind of attention, to see the blood staining his shirt. To know he forgot his reflexes are slower now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere it hides a well

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Written for allthingsmisha to [this image prompt](http://cassiesdestielartrecs.tumblr.com/post/42876347625/healing-by-ass-butt). Title from Antoine de St. Exupery. Set during season 9. Thank you to geckoholic for the beta.

While Dean starts patching Castiel's scratches and the wound on his arm, Sam stays. The first-aid kit is open on the map table and Castiel keeps his gaze on the rolls of gauze, the bottle of antiseptic, the shining gleam of the scissors. Sam leans forward on his chair, elbows on his knees. Any time he glances up, Sam's watching him, eyes kind, and it's terrible. He's not quite sure why Sam lingers for this. Castiel doesn't look up at Dean at all. He only sees Dean's hands, strong and steady, wrapping the bandage around his arm where the roc's beak took a piece of his skin. 

It's embarrassing, to need this kind of attention, to see the blood staining his shirt. To know he forgot his reflexes are slower now, his hearing and sense of smell a little less sharp, his strength more pitiful. Goosebumps rise on his skin--the air of the Men of Letters headquarters is especially cool this evening, temperatures outside falling. This didn't matter before. It wasn't something he needed to notice.

Dean clicks his tongue against his teeth as he finishes the bandaging. "Okay, that should do ya. Don't get it wet." 

His fingers linger against Castiel's skin a moment before he tugs the sleeve of Castiel's flannel shirt back down and starts quickly putting things away. 

"It didn't look too bad," Sam says, getting to his feet. "Really. Probably only take a few days to heal."

Looking up at him, Castiel can't decide if it's true or if Sam is lying to make him feel better.

His stomach growls loudly and that's still strange too, along with the acuteness of the ache in his arm and the heat of the scratches on the back of his hand.

*

Late that night, it starts to snow. 

There are colored lights hanging on the wall of Dean's room. It was Sam's idea--he put them up all over the bunker. Kevin and Sam got into an argument about it because Kevin didn't want them in his room, couldn't see the point. Dean raised an eyebrow when Sam suggested it, before giving a tiny, pleased smile he turned away to hide.

Castiel helped Sam hang them. In part because it simply gave him something to do, in part for the same reason that Dean smiled. 

He sits on Dean's mattress, and allows Dean to settle close behind him and ease him out of his shirt. Castiel bows his head and twitches his shoulders.

"Still hurt?" Dean asks, voice low with his mouth next to his ear.

"No," Castiel says. "That is, yes, the spots where the creature's beak caught me are still uncomfortable but that isn't--"

It's a weight between his shoulders, uneasiness beneath his skin that comes and goes. 

Dean's hand slides carefully over Castiel's side, holding him steady. "Cas?"

"It's worse when I'm tired," Castiel says, each word heavy, meted out, "or when I'm in pain. Although the pain from my wounds isn't that bad, I assure you," he adds hastily. 

"That was some impressive swordsmanship back there, the way you took that sucker down," Dean says, fingers of his other hand at Castiel's shoulder now, rubbing in slow circles. "That was badass." The touch makes Castiel's blood go warmer, almost mutes the vague, uneasy tug that lives beneath the skin of his shoulder blades.

Dean's fingers rub harder, other hand sliding down along Castiel's ribcage to rest at his hip, and Castiel draws in a shaky breath, leaning back into the touches. 

Twisting his body, heedless of the sting from the wound in his arm, Castiel takes Dean's face in his hands and kisses him, tongue pushing eagerly into Dean's mouth that opens so readily for him. He can ignore the rest for the moment, falling into what exists between them. Castiel understands it in an academic sense, what it is, what it means, but the sensations and emotions aren't something he knows how to describe adequately. Dean doesn't seem to do much better, referring to it in vague terms, this _whatever it is going on with us_ but Castiel has learned that's never the whole picture with Dean, he's learned not to assume, he's learned to see what it means that Dean does certain things. Why Dean stalked out when the Winchesters returned to the bunker one day to find twelve kinds of pie waiting on the library table. When Dean returned an hour later, and only stared wordlessly at Castiel a moment before kissing him hard, it made perfect sense.

Turning around all the way, gripping Dean's shoulders, Castiel straddles Dean. The scar Castiel left on Dean a long time ago is gone, but Castiel's hand fits over Dean's shoulder as if it belongs there. Castiel slides his hands down over Dean's arms, and then to his back. He moves his hands up under the layers of shirts Dean's wearing to touch skin, and Dean arches at the touch. 

"Hey," Dean says, his voice gone a little rough as Castiel pushes down harder against him, "you up for this, with your injuries?"

"Yes," Castiel says tersely, and puts his mouth at Dean's neck, nipping and sucking at the skin. He pulls Dean's green button-down off, then starts tugging up his t-shirt.

Obligingly, Dean raises his arms so Castiel can pull it off, and then Dean leans in to lick at Castiel's chest, teasing at a nipple with his tongue, as Castiel runs his hands down along Dean's torso, feeling the hard twitch of muscle and the softness of flesh beneath his touch. The snow starts to fall more thickly outside the high windows of Dean's room, the lights casting a colored haze onto the flakes gathering on the glass.

Castiel's hands continue their journey downward. He unzips Dean's jeans, pulling at the waistband, then at Dean's underwear while Dean wriggles obligingly to help things along. Once Dean's cock is free of his boxers, Castiel starts stroking him, watching Dean, the way his mouth falls open, his eyes go darker, the shudder that gets into his breath because Castiel knows how to find the right spot to touch just so to make the reserves Dean has fall away. Dean thrusts up into his fist, letting out a small moan, before his hand is at Castiel's crotch, cupping and rubbing him through the denim. The desire that shocks through Castiel is both pleasurable and unbearable, dulling the pain in his arm and the muted echo of the ache between his shoulder blades. 

They both fumble completely out of their jeans and underwear. Castiel teases at the head of Dean's cock, circling the head with his thumb, his mouth at Dean's neck again, tongue sliding down over skin grown salty with sweat. He moves his mouth lower, mapping already learned paths over Dean's skin, kissing him with great care and hoping it's enough, that Dean understands. Letting out a curse low in his throat, Dean fumblingly reaches over to the drawer of his bedside table, clumsy in his rummaging, until he finally locates the bottle of lubricant. 

It's absolutely impossible to describe what it's like to have Dean looking at him like that, skin flushed and freckles standing out even more darkly, his heart going hard and fast beneath Castiel's palm when he puts his hand on Dean's chest. Dean leans up to kiss him, exploratory, a slow dance of lips and tongue, before he squeezes some of the lubricant into his palm and strokes Castiel until his cock is slick with it and Castiel's having trouble breathing. He closes his eyes and lets Dean work at him, loses himself in the feel of hands and skin and the soft wetness of Dean's tongue against his skin, moans Dean's name. Without his grace, there's nothing between himself and the human form he wears. When Jimmy's soul moved on to heaven, he left Castiel alone inside the hollow of the framework of flesh and bone and blood, but he still had his grace. 

This is different. Castiel's fingers dig into Dean's skin.

He opens his eyes and pushes Dean down until he's lying on his back. He works his fingers, slick with pre-come and lubricant, into Dean while Dean swears at him and starts demanding _Cas, Cas, c'mon, c'mon, please._ Castiel removes his fingers and seizes Dean's hips, maneuvering Dean into position for better access, and slides his way in, gasping at the feel of Dean around him. Dean grins up at him, neither a challenge nor a smirk and it makes Castiel's chest feel warm. Dipping his head, Castiel kisses Dean's jaw, the corner of his mouth, the tip of his nose, still hoping this is enough, that Dean will know what it means. 

Curling his fingers around Dean's cock, Castiel begins stroking him as he thrusts. Buried deep inside Dean with his blood thrumming too hot beneath his skin, Castiel gasps again, and Dean puts his hands at Castiel's hips, steadying him, urging him deeper. Dean groans, a rough, hungry sound, and throws his head back, exposing his throat. Castiel lowers his head to put his mouth at the hollow of it where the sweat pools, breathing in Dean's scent. A little more, and Dean's undone.

"Cas…Castiel." Dean shudders beneath him as he comes, stickiness covering Castiel's stomach.

A few more thrusts and Castiel feels himself shatter and break apart, his face against the curve of Dean's neck as he shouts his name.

He subsides and slumps his body down along Dean's, as Dean curls his arms around him, moving slowly, carefully, and Castiel knows it's so he doesn't touch the bandage wrapped around Castiel's arm. This doesn't seem right, somehow. It's he who should be careful of Dean, watching over him, but how can he when he's barely a warrior himself any longer, drowning in his own limitations and his sense of helplessness at what he couldn't prevent and has no idea how to fix now. 

Dean's fingers trace lightly down the line of Castiel's spine.

The weight, the itch, the unsettled feeling returns but it's far less than it was before. Castiel rests his head against Dean's shoulder, staring at the weapons hanging on the wall, including the one Dean used in Purgatory. There's a model of a fictional spaceship perched on the shelf, a gift from Charlie, the markings "NCC-1701" clear on the circle that forms the top of it. 

"I can still feel them sometimes," Castiel says.

"Them? You mean the other--" Dean stops abruptly and brushes the hair back from Castiel's forehead. The touch appears casual and yet it's full of care.

"My wings," Castiel confesses, keeping his eyes on the starship. "They're not gone, not exactly. They're not a physical object as you might define them, but they exist. They're dormant. They're tucked away into an inter-dimensional pocket where I can no longer access them." He moves his head so he can hear Dean's heartbeat more easily. "But sometimes, I can still feel them."

It's a long while before Dean answers. His fingers tighten against Castiel's skin. "Phantom limbs," Dean says, his voice quiet in Castiel's ear, and full of something that makes Castiel's eyes sting. "My dad told me about that, veterans who've lost an arm or a leg and afterwards, they can still feel it sometimes."

Castiel slides off Dean, and lies facing the window, watching the snow falling. Reaching over him, Dean switches off the light, leaving the colored lights glowing in the darkness. Dean lies down, tugging Castiel towards him until his back is against Dean's chest, and Castiel allows himself to be pulled to the warmth of Dean's body.

He's still getting used to the idea of sleep as a necessity. Castiel watches the snow falling for a while. He senses when Dean drops off, the movement of his breathing going slower behind him.

When Castiel finally falls asleep, he dreams of starships.

~end


End file.
